Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, United States.
College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2020 Oct 6;54(19):12550-12559. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.0c01266. Epub 2020 Sep 15.
Large volumes of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-contaminated wastewaters, such as municipal solid waste landfill leachates, pose a challenge for PFAS treatment technologies in practice today. In this study, the surfactant properties of PFAS were exploited to concentrate the compounds in foam produced via the bubble aeration of landfill leachate. The effectiveness of the foaming technique for concentrating PFAS varied by compound, with a mean removal percentage (the percent difference between PFAS in leachate before and after foam removal) of 69% and a median removal percentage of 92% among the 10 replicate foaming experiments. This technique appears to be similarly effective at sequestering sulfonates and carboxylate PFAS compounds and is less effective at concentrating the smallest and largest PFAS molecules. The results of this study suggest that for the pretreatment or preconcentration of landfill leachates, foaming to sequester PFAS may provide a practical approach that could be strategically coupled to high-energy PFAS-destructive treatment technologies. The process described herein is simple and could feasibly be applied at a relatively low cost at most landfills, where leachate aeration is already commonplace.
大量含有全氟和多氟烷基物质 (PFAS) 的废水，如城市固体废物填埋场渗滤液，对当今 PFAS 处理技术构成了挑战。在本研究中，利用 PFAS 的表面活性剂特性，通过对垃圾渗滤液进行气泡曝气产生泡沫来浓缩这些化合物。泡沫技术浓缩 PFAS 的效果因化合物而异，在 10 次重复泡沫实验中，平均去除率（渗滤液中 PFAS 在泡沫去除前后的百分比差异）为 69%，中位数去除率为 92%。该技术似乎同样有效地隔离磺酸盐和羧酸盐 PFAS 化合物，而对浓缩最小和最大的 PFAS 分子的效果则较差。本研究结果表明，对于预处理或预浓缩垃圾渗滤液，泡沫分离 PFAS 可能是一种实用的方法，可以与高能 PFAS 破坏性处理技术进行战略性结合。本文所述的工艺简单，在大多数已经普遍进行渗滤液曝气的垃圾填埋场中，以相对较低的成本即可实施。
